This story was enough to cause brief panic to one of my co-workers, who read the story over the weekend and only found relief when the hiker’s description, aside from the name, didn’t match mine.

Scaring friends with news accounts is nothing new. When a world cup ski racer with whom I share a name crashed in January, the “skier…in coma” and “flown by helicopter to local hospital” parts were enough to cause a friend fleeting panic until further details were revealed.

Not that it makes someone nearly dying any better just because it wasn’t your friend, but if we got all emotional as if it were a loved one every time someone in the news was reported dead or injured, there wouldn’t be much to our lives besides despair and wearing black. I guess we’d at least be able to relate to Goth teenagers that way.

By the way, this is one of only a handful of times that I’ve indirectly referenced my last name on this blog. Not that I’m paranoid or anything. And not that it makes any difference—another employee at my former company was able to figure out who I was before I made any references to my full name just by cross referencing comments from fatty’s blog.

Incidentally, today marks the one-year anniversary of not being employed at the Huge Company. The four month gap was pretty touch-and-go, and we’re still filling in that crater, but on the whole I’m very glad to be gone. Hang in there, 331 miles, your day will come soon enough.